Question: What is RNA?

Alena Pance answered on 10 Jun 2020:

Hi Claudia, RNA is a nucleotide molecule. Like DNa, it is formed of nucleotides and it encodes the ‘manual of life’. DNA is organised in a double strand forming a helix and contains all the information to make cells and give them their function. RNA on the other hand is a single strand and though it can encode the whole genome of certain viruses, generally it is more a messenger. Mainly, because the DNA is enormous and unique in the cell, it cannot travel out of the nucleus of the cell, where all the machinery to make proteins is. So what happens is that a gene or coding part of the genome is transcribed into a molecule of RNA, which leaves the nucleus to go to the cytoplasm where it gives the information to make proteins.